London based artist JOHN GLEDHILL, who has created a series of extinction based paintings, is pleased to announce an auction of the Last Elephant painting (oil on canvas, 127 x 157 cms) and will donate 50% of the proceeds to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT).
The auction will take place just in time for WORLD ELEPHANT DAY (August 12th) and you can bid on the beautiful art work at www.johngledhill.co.uk, and follow the link to eBay.
THE LAST ELEPHANT (left) is one of a series of images on the subject of the extinction of animals, that Gledhill began working on in the early 1990s. This series also includes the large scale painting THE LAST TIGER 1993 and the forthcoming LAST RHINO to complete the triptych. These are the largest land animals on earth and are in the greatest danger of extinction due to poaching and loss of habitat.
DSWT is today the most successful orphan-elephant rescue and rehabilitation program in the world and one of the pioneering conservation organisations for wildlife and habitat protection in East Africa.
The Last Elephant print recently featured in The Independent and Independent on Sunday, when it was donated as part of their Elephant Appeal campaign.
John explains that the scene for these images is an imagined one, set in the near future when the last surviving example of the animal is being paraded from town to town, to give people one last chance to see it. Originally the animal was in a cage but the bars obscured the view of the creature so John removed them. Most of the people in the image are on the whole indifferent to the fact that the elephant portrayed is the last of its kind and there is a kind of carnival atmosphere, where only one or two people try to draw the crowd’s attention to the headline in the paper the man is holding.
